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Vatican Diary / The "who's who" of the new pope's electors

Name by name, nation by nation, role by role, all of the cardinals who will enter into conclave. An indispensable guide for the event

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VATICAN CITY, March 5, 2013 – Subtracting the two who have declined to take part in the conclave, the Scottish Keith Michael Patrick O'Brian and the Indonesian Jesuit Julius Darmaatmadja, the cardinals who will enter the Sistine Chapel to elect the successor of Benedict XVI at the moment number 115.

Below they are listed by continent and by nation, with the place of activity of each one, the abbreviation of any religious order of membership, the date of birth and the indication of the pope who conferred the scarlet on them, John Paul II (JP-II) or Benedict XVI (B-XVI).

Able to participate not in the conclave but in the general congregations that precede it are the cardinals over the age of eighty. At the beginning of the sede vacante there were 90 of them, 52 of them European (21 Italians), 11 Latin Americans (4 Brazilians), 8 North Americans (all from the United States), 9 Asians, 7 Africans, and 3 from Oceania.

A curiosity: also entering the conclave will be German cardinal Kasper, who turned eighty on March 4. Under the regulations previous to those issued by John Paul II in 1996, he would not have been admitted.

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There are 20 cardinals belonging to religious orders who will participate in the conclave (15 are over the age of eighty).

The most numerous are the Salesians, with 4 cardinals: Amato, Bertone, Farina, Rodriguez Maradiaga. The Franciscan friars minor follow with 3: Amigo Vallejo, Hummes, Napier. The Dominicans have 2: Schonborn and Duka. With only one cardinal are the Jesuits (Bergoglio), the Vincentians (Rodé), the Redemptorists (Terrazas), the Capuchins (O'Malley), the Oblates (George), the Sulpicians (Ouellet), the members of the Schönstatt Institute (Errazuriz Ossa), and the maronite mariamite order (Rai).

The college of the pope's electors also includes a member of Opus Dei (Cipriani Thorne), an historic representative of Communion of Liberation (Scola), and at least a pair of friends of the Focolare movement (Antonelli and Braz de Aviz). Strongly sympathetic toward the Neocatecumenals are Filoni, Cordes, and Cañizares. Dias is close to the charismatic movement.

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There are 40 cardinal electors who are working or have finished their ecclesiastical “cursus honorum” in the curia or in other Roman offices.

The cardinals from the United States are 4 (3 of them active - Burke, Harvey, and O’Brien - and the retired Levada). The Spanish are 2 (Cañizares, Abril y Castelló) and the same for the Polish (Grocholewski and Rylko), all of them active. There are also 2 Germans, but both of them in retirement: Cordes and Kasper.

From Latin America come the Argentine Sandri and the Brazilian Braz de Aviz (active) and the other Brazilian Hummus (retired).

From Europe come the French Tauran, the Portuguese Monteiro, and the Swiss Koch - all of them active - and the retired Rodé, Slovenian.

The African members of the curia, active, are the Ghanaian Turkson and the Guinean Sarah. Also an active member of the curia is the Canadian Ouellet, while the Indian Dias is retired.

While among the cardinals now at the head of a diocese who have previously had positions of responsibility in the Vatican are Sepe, Vallini, Dziwisz, Backis, Agnelo, Hummes, Errazuriz Ossa, Rigali, and Patabendige Don. Scherer, Wuerl and DiNardo have also long worked in the curia, but as officials.

Cardinal Sardi moreover, although he did not attend the ecclesiastical pontifical academy, acquired the qualification of apostolic nuncio, with the connected benefits, when as the head of the office of pontifical “ghost writers” he was promoted to archbishop by John Paul II.